


Gotta raise a little hell

by actualkon



Series: GTA/Gang AU [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA AU, Criminal AU, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Organized Crime, The hockey mafia, Trans Character, Trans Eric "Bitty" Bittle, implied Holsom, implied shittylardo, implied zimbits, its all backstory so its all implied rn, morally grey everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualkon/pseuds/actualkon
Summary: "I shoot the lights out. Hide till its right out. Oh, just another lonely night. Are you willing to sacrifice your life?"How does a criminal empire begin? A series of backstories





	Gotta raise a little hell

**Author's Note:**

> I promise this isn't as dark as it sounds

_It's a bitch convincing people to like you. If I stop now call me a quitter, If lies were cats you'd be a litter, pleasing everyone isn't like you- I can't decide, Scissor Sisters_

 

_______

 

The thing about it is, Bitty could have a reason for being hateful. Nothing to justify it, but something to make people nod their heads and think ‘ _no wonder’_.

 

It could be the school bullies, shoving and kicking him until he was a broken, mangled mess. It could be his parents, who said they loved him, then turned their backs and kicked him out the second he wasn't the sweet ‘girl’ they’d raised. Of course a boy scorned like this would turn dark and angry with the world.

 

These _could_ be reasons, but they aren’t the truth. Honestly, Bitty isn’t actually hateful. Bitty isn’t angry, with the world or with anything. Bitty doesn’t have a burning need to hurt those who hurt him, or to senselessly destroy everything around him the way he was destroyed. Oh, no. Bitty _wishes_ it was something like a vendetta. At least vendettas are a cause and effect.

 

The truth is, Bitty’s just always been drawn to things he shouldn’t be. Fast things, dirty things. Things his mother tried to steer him from and raise him to be above. And Bitty tried so hard to be above it, to be the good child they asked for. He got good grades, he went to church like he was told, he did his chores around the house. It just never changed anything about him.

_____

 

Even when Bitty was on the streets, with every reason to steal, he tried to be good. Bitty only stole because he had to, and only when he had to. It didn’t matter that he was good at it, because it wasn’t something to be good at. It was a means of survival. Bitty kept his head above the water line, just barely, and didn’t let himself be lured into anything more. When the opportunity presented itself for a stable living in the form of a checkout boy, he took it.

 

Things start to look up. Bitty finds an apartment, he gets a promotion, he finds a nice boy at a coffee shop and starts to date him. Everything is set for Bitty to have a nice, quiet life.

 

Nice and quiet don’t sit very well with Bitty, and they sure don’t sit well with Los Santos. Los Santos is as glitzy as it is dirty as it is violent. Maybe that’s why Bitty ran there in the first place. As much as Bitty tries to live his honest life in a dishonest city, he gets glimpses of deals in alleys, sees the same boys arrested in the news who are always let go within the week, despite mountains of evidence against them.  

 

And he craves it.

 

_____

 

It’s almost nine months into Bitty’s Happy Home™ when Bitty ruins his life. Or that’s what anyone else would say. Bitty doesn’t feel that way - not really.

 

The first mistake started in the beginning, when Bitty didn’t run the second he found out his nice, sweet, coffee shop boyfriend—Brent—was a cop.

 

Not only was Brent a cop, he was a clean cop. A cop that was trying to make the city better for the people in it. Bitty should have run, because a cop was too close to everything Bitty was trying to make himself avoid, but Bitty stayed. Bitty stayed because he could listen to Brent’s stories in bated breath and fake concern.

 

The second mistake was thinking he could keep up a happy appearance at all.

 

Brent is sitting on the sofa, Bitty’s in the kitchen, cooking, when Brent says, “I made us dinner reservations at Patricia’s for next week.”

 

Next week. Their anniversary. Bitty forces a smile. “Sounds lovely.”

 

“Nine months,” Brent says, getting up, walking over to Bitty in the kitchen, wrapping him in a hug from behind. “Can you believe it’s been so long?”

 

The oven gets slammed a little too hard. “Nope! I sure can’t!”

“Three more, and we’ll be celebrating our one year!”

 

It sinks in, and Bitty thinks—really thinks—about having spent a year with Brent, and then another, and another, until they’re getting married and having a kid and living a nice little suffocatingly boring life with two-point-five kids and a dog and a house and a mortgage-

 

“I can’t- I can’t do this,” Bitty whispers.

 

And that’s how Bitty ruined nine months of his life in the span of two seconds. Or, that’s what anyone else would say. Bitty really can’t say he feels the same.

 

_____

 

Nothing changes. Not really, anyway.

 

Bitty doesn’t see Brent anymore, and that gets settled and forgotten within the span of a few weeks, because Brent wasn’t really tangled in Bitty’s life. Most of the work there is getting things from Brent’s apartment back to his.

 

Bitty keeps his job and his apartment, and he keeps living his nice life.

 

There’s one difference, though, and that is every so often, Bitty lifts.

 

Sometimes it’s from a homophobic patron who doesn’t shut up, or the store itself when his boss’ mood is taken out on the rest of them.

 

It’s not necessity - but it’s harmless, and it’s only every so often. Never anything that would affect them, either. Just a twenty here and there, or a pack of gum when no one's looking. Things that won’t be missed, anyway. It’s just to keep Bitty from slipping again.

 

_____

 

It takes six days for Bitty to make himself go to the bank to deposit a check. Not five, not seven. There’s no particular reason for the delay. Except, maybe fate.

 

Some things happen for a reason, after all.

 

Bitty spends so much time feeling connected to the darkness of the city that he thinks he’d know something was going to happen before it happened; a gut feeling, maybe. But Bitty doesn’t notice anything until the first guard goes down. And then the second. And then the third.

 

Immediately, there’s chaos all around, people screaming and trying to get out of the way. A few of them make it to the streets, but bitty knows they’ll be picked off in the openness of the streets. He’s seen all of this before, though never in person.

 

Bitty just stands there watching, then thinks maybe he should get down and hide somewhere, just in an effort to not get shot by a bullet.

 

He doesn’t have a chance to. An arm comes around his waist, pulling him back hard against their chest and doesn’t let up. A gun is put to the side of his head.

 

“Nothing personal, babe,” the voice says against his ear, a light accent that Bitty can’t place under the pressure, “don’t move, don’t do anything stupid, and you’ll get out alive.”

 

A few others start to flood in, all masked, all in black.

 

Bitty is by all means terrified, but another part of him feels more alive than it has in twenty one years. And then that part of Bitty decides to do something stupid, despite the warning.

 

Whoever the dude holding him is, he’s clearly in charge of the other masked people, because he’s too busy barking out orders to them (into Bitty’s _ear_ , which _hurts_ ) to notice Bitty’s hand itching back slowly, and lifting his wallet, and sliding it into his own pocket.

 

Bitty makes a good captive, he likes to think. When his captor presses the gun barrel a little harder because the clerks aren’t giving them the amount they’re demanding, Bitty lets out a little sob, and pats himself on the back when the clerks start handing it over.

 

All too soon, the thieves take their money, and Bitty is tossed roughly to the floor as the man takes off, along with his crew. Bitty looks up to catch a glimpse of his assailant, but only sees the back of him, and can’t help but think ‘ _lord, he’s got a good ass_ ’.

 

Between the police statement, and then the reporters, Bitty gets a little swept up in playing up his trauma to look realistic. He fake cries when he’s suppose to, thanks the police, says a few words the news can replay later that night.

 

When the police ask if Bitty managed to get a clear look at the face of the man who’d held him, Bitty finally remembers the wallet tucked safely in his pocket, probably with a fake photo ID.

 

“No,” Bitty says, truthfully, “I didn’t see his face.”

 

It’s a few hours before Bitty is alone again, in his car, where he can take out the wallet and really look at it.

 

There’s a few receipts, some cash, but Bitty’s mostly interested in the ID. He slips it out and looks it over. Blue eyes and floppy black hair, named Laurent Jackson. Bitty shakes his head. That can’t be right. Unless this boy is particularly dumb enough to carry around a real ID, it has to be an alias.

 

_____

 

For the second time that day, Bitty overestimates his gut feeling.

 

Bitty should’ve noticed an unfamiliar bike parked in the space next to his as he got home, but it was hours later, so late it was dark, and Bitty was exhausted. Nothing goes noticed, though, until Bitty closes the door to his apartment, turns on the light and he notices a man sitting on his sofa, lounging causally. In his hands, twirling, is a knife.

 

For the second time that day, Bitty has every right to be terrified, but some flame in him is ignited.

 

Bitty digs for the wallet in his pocket and tosses it to the man, who catches it easily with his free hand. “Nothing personal, babe.”

 

The man laughs. “You know, I thought you were moving around too much. I thought you were maybe just a squirmer.” The man flips open the wallet, closes it, and extends his hand.

 

Bitty blinks at him innocently.

 

The man sighs. “The ID. Where is it?”

 

Bitty bites back a grin. “I have no idea.”

 

“I don’t have _time_ for this. Where’s the ID?”

 

Bitty makes a show of checking his front pockets, then his back pockets, meanwhile the man looks at him, thoroughly unimpressed. Finally, Bitty pulls out the card from the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie. “Ah! This one?”

 

The stranger reaches for it, and Bitty tugs it away. “Hold it! This says your name is Laurent Jackson. I don’t think that’s entirely right.”

 

Bitty only gets a second to brace before he’s being knocked back onto the couch and pinned under the man.

 

“Well! Ain’t this a bit forward!”

 

This makes the man stare at him. “Do you have a death wish? There’s easier ways to die than being carved up, you know.”

 

Bitty’s well aware he’s practically playing with fire next to a waiting fuse in an oil refinery, but he can’t stop, now that he’s started. His mother did always warn him about bad behavior being a slippery, addictive slope.

 

“I just wanna know your name.”

 

The man shoots Bitty a filthy grin. “Why?” he leans in, close to Bitty’s ear. “Want to know what name to scream when you’re begging for mercy?”

 

Something in Bitty stirs, and he grins back. “Who says I’ll beg?”

 

A little—somehow still logical—part of Bitty’s brain screams that he’s currently under a much larger man who broke into his apartment, threatened to kill him, and he’s sitting (laying) here _flirting_ with him of all things.   

 

The man just laughs. “You’re a ballsy one. So if I give you my real name, you’ll give me that ID?”

 

Bitty nods, and the man pushes up onto his knees. “Jack.”

 

“Jack,” Bitty mimics. “I’m Eric.”

 

Jack doesn’t respond, just watches Bitty curiously for a second. After a few moments, Jack breaks the silence. “You know, I’d usually just kill you, but I’m thinking that would be a waste.”

 

Bitty raises a brow. “Waste of-?”

 

“You,” Jack says simply, “Your skills. And I don’t mean the sticky fingers. I saw your interview on the news. It’s more than being a good actor. You know how to make people trust you.”

 

Bitty rolls his eyes and stands up from the sofa, making his way to the kitchen “It’s not hard to make people feel sorry for you after you’re involved in a bank robbery,” he calls back.

 

There’s footsteps following him, and sure enough, Jack’s just behind him. Bitty doesn’t acknowledge him, just starts digging through the fridge for something to make.

 

Jack continues, “most people can’t fake trauma like that. They don’t need to.”

 

“Maybe I am traumatized,” Bitty says, a little short, “Maybe I’m in shock.”

 

Jack hums. “Maybe. Or maybe you just don’t care like you should.”

 

That makes Bitty freeze. He stands in surprise for a second, and then closes the fridge and turns to face Jack, arms crossed.

 

“Okay. You caught me. What does this have to do with me being valuable?”

 

“Me and my crew aren’t exactly open enrollment,” Jack says, “but I think you’d be a good asset as a decoy. You’d scout places, talk to people, get information and report back.”

 

For a moment, Bitty waits for the punchline, for Jack to start laughing like earlier, but he doesn’t. He just watches Bitty, expectantly.

 

“Y-you’re serious?” Bitty says finally, “You want me to join your crew?”

 

Jack nods.

 

It’s everything Bittys ever wanted, served up on a plate, with a bow. It’s everything Bitty’s fought to stay away from, that would ruin what Bitty’s worked so hard for.

 

But what _has_ Bitty worked for? A cheap apartment and some morals given to him by people he hasn’t seen in years?

 

Still, Bitty clings to some semblance of self preservation. “I’m not a criminal.” It sounds more like a question than a stance.

 

Jack snorts. “You lie like one.”

 

“I was trying to be _normal,_ ” Bitty says between his teeth.

 

“How’s that working for you?”

 

“Fine!” Bitty snaps loudly, “It’s been fine! I have an apartment, and a job, and...” Bitty trails off.

 

Jack sighs. “And you’re satisfied with this?”

 

Bitty doesn’t reply.

 

There’s footsteps again, making their way to stand behind Bitty.

 

“I’m not going to beg, but you can’t fool me. You won’t be happy like this. I tried it too.”

 

They’re quiet for a moment again, until Bitty finally, quietly asks, “What would this entail?”

 

“Starts with a few tests of loyalty, training and initiation, and then a couple of small jobs, trial runs. Mainly, we run a bar, so we’ll set you up as a bartender, you keep an ear out for anything you think is suspect. Talk to people. You work your way up jobs. You get paid.”

 

“And...when would this start?”

 

“As soon as you’d want it to.”

 

Again, they fall into silence, and then Bitty turns to face Jack again. “Alright. I’m in.”

 

Jack smiles.

 

When Jack asks what changed his mind, Bitty doesn’t answer him. Maybe it was the reassurance that he’d be trained, or knowing that Jack had tried to be normal once, too.

 

Those could be reasons, but they aren’t.

 

The truth is, Bitty just wanted the knowledge that he tried to be good, one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK U TO MY BETA GABE AND TO EVERYONE WHO I MADE READ THIS EARLY. LOV Y’ALL


End file.
